1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hand-held instruments and, more specifically, to a hand-held instrument, such as a writing instrument (e.g., a mechanical pencil or a ballpoint pen), having a deformable grip section providing a variable contour grip.
2. Background Information
Conventional hand-held instruments include, for example, writing instruments having a tubular grip body of the type to be held between the fingers of the hand for use. Conventional writing instruments of this type having a tubular grip body made of a soft resilient material provided on the grip section of a writing instrument main body are generally known. Further, various types of such conventional writing instruments of which the thickness, position, etc. of the grip body can be changed have been proposed. Since the foregoing structure of the conventional writing instruments has been adopted primarily for the purpose of increasing or decreasing a diameter of the grip body, a cross-section of the grip body still maintains a circular shape. Furthermore, in order to deform the grip body into a shape other than a circular shape, it is required to provide a means for pressing the grip body in the axial direction of the writing instrument main body as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,038. Accordingly, the resulting structure of the foregoing conventional writing instruments has been complex and expensive to manufacture.